a cyclist enters a triathlon and gets humbled | Blenheim Palace Triathlon

humbled at my first Triathlon of the year

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baby [Music] go so my dream triathlon would be one where the swim gets canned every single time they just cancel the swim because they can into a 90k descent on the bike big 90k downhill bomber love the sound of that and then you finish with a 100 meter sprint that’s the sort of triathlon that would play to my strengths but sadly I had a look and that doesn’t exist so we’re doing the next best thing which is a sprint triathlon can you imagine how popular that event I just described would be that would be selling out in seconds good afternoon boys and girls we have got ourselves a pretty interesting day today we’re heading down to Oxford because we are going to be doing the Blenhan triathlon tomorrow the sprint triathlon 750 m swim which I can just get behind that distance it’s just quite nice in it i underestimated how hard that would be i was I came out the swim i was in a different dimension into a 20k bike i wish it was a little bit further but an allout 20k could be interesting to see what sort of uh time we can do that in and then we finish with a 5.4k run which again will be all out now I think on paper the distance is obviously achievable in terms of completion but I think it’ll actually be a little more painful than I’m anticipating cuz it’s going to be such an intense effort because of the distance it’s going to be potentially pretty heinous just thinking like an allout 5k after an allout 20k bike ain’t going to be that nice so it’s going to be a short but intense V2 max event basically the thing that’s concerning me slightly is the absolute lack of preparation that I have done for this event outside of the bike i’ve done 36 km of running all year it’s June and I’ve done two swims in the last 10 months so swimming and running ain’t looking too good breath but like I said the bike is where we’re going to come in clutch and hopefully deliver me a semidecent time to be honest with you an allout 20k effort on this bike sounds like an absolutely sensational time get down to Oxford i’ve packed my bag guaranteed to have forgotten at least two crucial items but we’ll find out tomorrow morning that is a future damn problem oh also I’ve got some new wheels so let’s do a quick little hub check right we made it to where we’re staying for the night place called Woodstock just literally right opposite Ben Blenheim actually or Blenhan it is so nice around there it’s like uh kind of like the Cotswwell you know like stone buildings in that posh [Music] gaff plan for the evening now is just chill out have a bit of a briefing with Jade cuz she’s on camera woman duty which is going to be interesting one hopefully we get some footage that’s uh salvageable to make a video with many of you seeing this then success and then just go to bed and then we’re going to head over to Blenhan in the morning to set everything up and get all the sorted that you need to do i can’t even remember what you’re actually going to do at a triathlon it’s been so long but we’ll figure it out right we have just checked into the little gaff we’re staying in for the night and it is a beauty have a look at this it’s like an old farmhouse type thing it’s such a nice little gaff [Music] let’s go through all the kit that I have brought with me because this is going to be the part where I realize I’ve forgotten something and it’s going to be panic stations cuz we’ve not got much time to go and get whatever we have forgotten let’s go through first off for the swim all I have got for the swim are some new goggles these are like Speedos racy goggles i’m not sure on the name of them be the first time trying them out i hope they’re going to be good got a swim cap i think they’ll probably give us a swim cap tomorrow in like the the race pack but got one just in case towel to dry off in T1 and of course I’ve got the suit that is going to keep me dry in the lake this is one from Zone 3 i’m not sure on the model but it’s a very good one one I wore in Austria and it proper helps keep you afloat and not sink and the triuit is a collaboration between Runner and No Pins i’ve never worn anything from No Pins but I’ve heard good things about him this is smart i tried it on the other day it fits very nice and it’s quite comfortable as well and I’ll be wearing that under the wet suit in the swim obviously taking the wet suit off and then you’re on the bike leg in which I’ll have the got a zone three like race belt i think this is mainly just to stick your number on and stick some gels in but I’m not going to take any gels I don’t think be tracking everything on the 4ERunner 970 this is a new one from Garmin i just got this the other day along with the HRM600 which is their new like top of the range heart rate monitor i’ll also have the Garmin Edge 840 this is the solar version i’ve not been running this one recently at all i’ve been using the 1050 pretty much as my daily thing now but given this is a bit smaller and a bit more lightweight I thought we’d go for this one for the triathlon got the new rafa power weave shoes i’ve been wearing these quite a bit they are very very nice i’m normally a lake man but uh these are newer and whiter my lakes are just a bit of a disgrace at the minute so I don’t want to wear them and fuel I’m going to have just one drink mix 320 from Morton in the beon and I might even stick one of these cadence electrolytes in there as well i don’t think it’s going to be hot enough i’m not going to be sweating that much I don’t think by the looks of the weather it’s not going to be that nice and then I’ve got the bike and the helmet and the run pretty straightforward just going to stick this cap on and I’ve got the Sockney Endorphin Pro the Endorphin Pro 4s these are just a bit of a a staple shoe i’ve run pretty much all of my races over the last year in these shoes they’re solid carbon plate as well so fairly quick but also equally as comfortable i’ve just got to Fenham now the weather’s actually pretty nice it’s quite windy so I don’t know if you can hear me or not but we’re on the way to transition to go and set up everything uh I forgot what you’re actually meant to do it’s been so long since I’ve done the Iron Man 70.3 but we’ll have to figure it out anyway look how nice it is around here it’s going to be a pretty nice race I think [Music] heat heat [Music] the bike we are on for the day as always the Vanam Risle RCR Pro running Ultegra Di2 we’ve got some new wheels as well actually race wheels from a brand called number six and they are 45 mil deep on the front and 50 mil on the rear they’re actually super lightweight i think they’re about 1,260 g which is a big big improvement actually on the old table wheels I was running before so I’m excited to have a bit of a dig on them today got the Garmin Edge like I said yesterday uh this is just the tiny little one i’m just going to add the power and my heart rate on there just to see how much of a hole I end up in and yeah that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say on the bike uh we’re going to go now to the transition been totally have to wear my helmet to get in there so let’s go for it now [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] what number are you what number are you right okay here we go [Music] all right I think we’re set got everything well I think I’ve got everything set up by the bike and that come out of the swim dry myself take the wet suit off dry myself off stick the the cycling shoes on and my race belt and then I’m pretty much good to go I think got my goggles ready for the swim i’m just going to head over to the start now so I’ll see you in a bit oh oh the swim where do I even start with that one it was the worst swim experience I’ve had and I’ve done Olympic distance tries and 70.3s but this one I think because I underestimated it so much ended up being the worst there’s a few reasons as to why I think that is number one obviously the lack of training ain’t going to do anyone any good but I didn’t think it would be as bad as it was i I knew from prior experience that when you get in the water open water the cold takes your breath your breath away quite literally and because I thought I knew that I thought I’d be able to get over it things could be worse and it’s only going to be about 15 20 minutes at worse unless I have a panic attack which will be it’ll be quicker that way however I I couldn’t get over it at all for the entire swim i couldn’t breathe properly as soon as your face hits the water you gasp like you naturally just gasp and inhale water like Blenham Palace lake was just running through my veins mate by the time I’d got out of that water and the difference between the longer swims and this one was I acclimatized about halfway in the triathlons I’ve done before so the 1500 m swim at T 100 and the 1900 m swim at Zelmay I climatized after about I don’t know 1 th000 m or so with this one being so short I just I could not climatize at all i spent the whole time just flapping about like an injured fish breast stroking doggy paddling at one point trying to catch my breath it was a painful one it’s funny cuz I could not complain about the actual lake itself was beautiful it was like glass so calm so like it was pretty clear as well but I have just realized the open water and stuff it’s never an environment I’m going to be comfortable in i always feel on edge i always feel a little bit like I can’t relax and just get into a flow it’s not you know ain’t my bag that when I got out the water I was dazed my legs were killing me cuz I’d just been breaststroking basically squatted in the water intensely for 17 minutes and then I went over to T1 i was flustered my heart rate was high i felt a bit dizzy and I just did not expect a 750 meter swim to put me away like that but we did make it through in a time of 16 minutes and 44 seconds which was 2 minutes and 14 per 100 m which is the slowest swim I’ve ever done in my life pretty much so that sort of speaks volumes really and a big lesson was learned you cannot wing the swim or at least I cannot wing the swim so for my next triathlons I am going to have to do more swimming and more open water training for sure but now we’re on to the bike leg and the course was pretty nice it was three 6.5 km loops of the palace grounds so as you can expect the scenery was beautiful the road quality was pretty good it was a rolling course i think there’s about 200 m of elevation which doesn’t sound like much but over 20k you know we’re on hills quite regularly and they were pretty slow going to be fair i felt weak as off the bat it was time to claw back some dignity and I did find myself overtaking people a lot on that bike course i think there’s a lot of people there who are new to triathlon new to cycling people don’t like flat bar mountain bikes hybrid bikes and stuff like that which is always good to see and there’s obviously people on CT bikes there’s a massive range of abilities out on the course which is always nice and although I wasn’t able to hold the power that I wanted to initially I was aiming for about 250 W uh I couldn’t even get anywhere near that i was thinking I think I I aaged about 230 watts in the end which you know I’ve done better but it’s not the worst performance in the world and we got round in 35 minutes and 56 seconds which is an average speed of just over 33 ks an hour i wasn’t too disappointed with at all it was 14th quickest time of the day no complaints there [Music] before I go i can make you forget last but not least the run uh been scarred by triathlon runs in the past the half marathon at the end of the 70.3 I did was up there with like top three worst runs I’ve ever done i was in in a hole the entire way it was a death march i am a little bit scarred when it comes to the running segment of triathlons but with this being a 5.4K run consisting of two loops of the grounds it couldn’t have been that bad could it it couldn’t have been that bad even if I was in a deep hole 5k is okay it’s a short one and I was quite pleased with it it actually turned out to be a pretty pleasant run i wasn’t out there burying myself we’re averaging a speed of 526 per kilometer which is about to be honest they I couldn’t have gone much quicker i don’t think my legs at that point were hurting just again more than I thought they would be it was just a game of underestimating how difficult it would be or how intense this shorter triathlon distance would be and overestimating my abilities as always a lot of people who had overtaken on the bike I was seeing fly by me on the run but we managed to get round in 29 minutes and 19 seconds so yeah averaged 526 per km no complaints actually quite enjoyed it if it was any longer than that then I would have stopped smiling because I would have been in a lot of pain at that point right we’re done i underestimated how hard that would be i was I came out the swim i was in a different dimension i don’t know what was going on felt weak as piss i couldn’t breathe when I was in the water for 700 m of it last 50 m I got comfortable and then I was breath stroking the whole way too as soon as I just put my head in I just couldn’t breathe i was just gasping i guess that’s part of uh not swimming much in preparation so to be expected and the bike was good my legs were a bit cut though to be honest i think we got I don’t know about 33ks an hour don’t know what time that was i’ll have to have a look and then the run was okay actually i felt all right i think we did just over 1 hour 30 i’ll have a look in we’ll come back with the official times on that in a bit but yeah I need a drink crossed the finish line in a time of 1 hour 31 minutes and 37 seconds which put me 117th on the day out of about 1,200 blo which ain’t a bad ain’t that bad I’m not disappointed in that at all that’s better than I thought I would be doing but just goes to show like the the range of abilities that are doing this this triathlon event and I think there needs to be more exposure on this kind of thing because it is the perfect way into triathlon you don’t need the fancy bikes you don’t need the fancy running shoes or anything like that show up in whatever it is you’ve got and you can just have a go at it and see if you are interested in the sport of triathlon all I am saying is make short distance events sexy again that’s it sprint triathlon 5k what happened to the 5k why do I never see any 5ks anymore it’s always just running across countries cycling across the globe man backyard ultra triple iron come on back to the 5k make 5k sexy again just cuz I’ve not got the bottle to do to do any of them i can do a 5K and then do a sprint triathon so make them cool again please me in all seriousness I couldn’t recommend that event enough it was really well organized a beautiful way to get into triathlon or to have a dig at sprint distance and also big shout out to runner for the invite what’s next for me in terms of events and triathlon and that so the next big thing I have is the Marmott Grand Fondo which is in a couple of weeks in the French Alps which is going to be boss and then I’m doing the attack the tour which is a similar thing and then finally I am going to be doing the T100 triathlon which will be my next venture into the world of triathlon t100 Olympic distance so again pretty nice distance not a not a slo [Music]